Knock On The Door
by Yuval25
Summary: "Are you a serial killer?" the drunken man asked in a defeated manner. Actually… "No," Harry half-lied, because okay, he wasn't a serial killer, but he did kill more than the average person. In which Harry's life is full of secrets, Aaron's life is full of grief, and the two meet and form the most unlikely relationship.
1. Chapter 1

_Harry/Aaron (Haaron? Aarry? Oh, who needs ship names, anyways)._

 _Don't knock it 'till you've tried it :)_

 **Knock On The Door - Chapter 1**

It was one of those nights for Harry, the kind when all the repressed doubts and regrets about how his life had turned out came to the surface and it felt like being punched in the gut with every step he took; when the pressure of the job finally got to him and the demands started to sink in. Harry knew when he was cornered – he _knew_ he had no way out whatsoever. So on those nights, he usually resolved to drown his sorrows with ample booze in some nameless pub, and probably with some half-attractive bloke who he would make sure to Obliviate in the morning, _just in case_.

It was a sad way to live life, but Harry had made peace with the fact that he rarely saw his son and friends long before stealing files had turned into blackmail and, yeah, assassinations eventually. It was a circle he couldn't seem to get out of, and in a way, didn't want to get out of. He got to catch the bad guys, mostly Muggle, but that was a given considering the wizarding population was hardly extensive enough to be called influential. Wars and such, yeah, those affected the Muggle world, but everyday politics and gang-related stuff – even the scandals, if Harry remembered the resignation streak in the Ministry's high ranks correctly – were kept under wraps for the most part.

It was a tricky business, and too many identities that sometimes – though not a lot – Harry got mixed up, but it was a rush. Merlin, it was a rush. It reminded him of the old days, with Ron and Hermione and sneaking around to find details of something they had caught scent of. After so many years of non-stop adventures, Harry was a bit addicted to the feeling, the constant danger and secret missions. He could do without the killing part, but it more or less came with the job, and as Harry climbed higher up the ladder it had, at some point, become inevitable.

How he ended up in the States was confidential, but let's just say his employer had supplied Harry with plenty of fake green cards, IDs and passports to fit his multiple identities, as well as documented backgrounds and birth certificates. He had used magic to make some points more believable, like providing concrete evidence for his temporary persona – forging documents and tinkering with people's memories wasn't what you would call legal, he admitted, but when had he played by the rules? – but mostly he had refrained from using his abilities for his own gain. Thankfully, his employer had not asked any questions about his unorthodox methods of completing tasks.

Tonight, Harry was between tasks, which meant he was free to do as he wished. He discarded himself of his previous identity – a blond bastard named Mark, who had stolen several important documents about illegal immigrants (rather ironic, considering Harry was, by all accounts, an illegal immigrant) – and strolled to the first pub he found, a few blocks from his hotel, looking like Harry Potter, for a change. He gave the guard at the front a fake ID with the name 'Erick Jacobs' and a sultry smile, as he realized the picture was obviously fake – but that's what you get when you try to make your own ID without the aid of magic or an employer – and was granted entrance to the pub. He smirked as he passed the guard. Obviously gay.

It was packed inside, warm, too. Harry took off his coat, sidestepping a smoking couple on his way to the bar. He placed his order and hopped onto one of the high chairs, grimacing as a pretty lady shot him a look that seemed to mock his need to hop to reach the seat. (It wasn't his fault he was short, blame genetics.)

He noticed a tall man sitting almost next to him at the bar. The man gave a heavy sigh as he ordered his drink, his hair falling over his forehead in a way Harry would bet his arse was not a regular look for him. Harry smiled and raised his glass when the man's eyes fell on him, and shrugged when he was not even acknowledged.

It was drink after drink, after that. Harry had every intention of getting sloshed and picking up some guy to screw relentlessly afterwards. His plans were interrupted when the man next to him stumbled out of his chair and somehow managed to fall onto Harry, making his drink spill all over the counter, and partly onto Harry's lap.

Harry cursed and turned to detach the bloke, but stopped when he met a pair of exhausted brown eyes, staring deeply into his own. The man had a defined jaw darkened with stubble, high cheekbones and thin, somewhat uneven lips that glistened under the pub's soft lights, the remnants of his last drink a wet, slick cover. It was the man from before, Harry realized. It was surprising, because Harry had been here for a while now, the stream of drinks keeping him occupied enough not to keep track of his surroundings.

"S'rry," the man slurred, frowning as the word left his mouth.

Control-freak, Harry deduced. Probably hated the thought of failing to speak properly.

Their faces were close, so Harry would have been a fool to miss the obvious way the man's drunken eyes flickered to his lips for a fraction of a second, and then darted back to Harry's eyes.

Bingo.

"It's alright," Harry answered, making sure the man took notice of him licking his lower lip. The man's tongue darted out to wet his own lip in reaction, and Harry suppressed a smirk. "Want to get out of here?"

He knew he was being blunt, but alcohol predictably shut down his verbal filters and so he was left with a rather obvious pick up.

As expected, the man frowned. Did he ever do anything else than frown? Harry thought it was rather unattractive, but no, actually, it was sort of cute how the man wrinkled his little nose as he tried to keep some measure of control.

"Are you a serial killer?" the drunken man asked in a defeated manner.

Actually… "No," Harry half-lied, because okay, he wasn't a serial killer, but he did kill more than the average person.

The man seemed to have a moment of relative-clarity, his eyes narrowing and his forehead adopting a few extra creases.

"Fine," the man finally said, and Harry grinned victoriously and hopped off the high chair, which made the man snort.

Harry rolled his eyes, somewhat sober – not really, but clearly more than his companion – and grabbed the man's wrist, distractedly reaching to his pocket with his other hand and throwing a large sum of dollars onto the counter. He led him to the exit, ignoring the incredulous look the guard at the front sent him – or the man he was dragging, really, though Harry had no idea why – and hailed a cab. There was no way he was walking all the way to the hotel in his state, not to mention while he was responsible for the man at his side.

Stumbling into the cab, Harry mumbled the hotel's name and nodded at the price the cabbie asked for the drive, not really listening but accepting that it would be overpriced and probably ridiculous by any standards. The drive was short, and Harry probably paid the driver more than he had even asked, but he didn't care. All he cared about was getting the man from the pub into his bed, and hopefully being able to forget what alcohol couldn't mask, aka the most recent assassination assignment. A man who had been privy to some sensitive information that he had stolen on a disk-on-key from a secret operative of the CIA, and his pregnant wife slash accomplice who had stumbled into the scene. _Fuck_.

Pushing the man into the lift, Harry wondered if he had made the wrong choice in bringing him here. The man was clearly far too drunk to even walk by himself. As soon as the elevator doors closed with a 'ding', the man was all over him, though, and this time, it was in a good way.

The surveillance camera was dealt with easily, and the person monitoring it would get the picture of two men standing side by side and waiting patiently for the lift to reach their level. That, though, couldn't be further from what actually happened.

Harry moaned softly as his tongue slid against the man's, his head tilting back to make the kiss easier as the man bent his own to match the pose. There were hands, really large and really warm hands, on his cheeks and in his hair, and Harry slid his own hands around the man's waist under his coat, bringing him closer and angling his own head just so…

Harry nearly froze as he felt something cold and solid attached to the man's side. The man's insistent mouth efficiently distracted him from the suspicious object, before he even had time to determine what it was.

The 'ding' went off again and Harry pushed the man away hastily, fumbling to distance himself to a socially acceptable distance, as the heavy doors opened and a young couple walked in, holding hands and making goo-goo eyes at each other in a way that made Harry grimace.

The next two stories were a struggling attempt to keep his companion's hands off of him, though the man certainly was determined, Harry would give him that.

He couldn't be more relieved when the lift reached his floor and he dragged the nearly-passed-out man out with him and down the carefully-carpeted hall to his room. He conjured the key discretely and let them in, locking the door after them.

The man immediately attached himself to Harry from behind, covering his body with his strong one, head dropping forward to rest on Harry's shoulder.

"Clingy," Harry remarked.

"I don't know your name," the man said back.

Harry considered it for a moment. "Harry," he finally decided on telling the man his real name. It's not like he would remember it in the morning, alcohol or otherwise.

"'m Aaron," the man replied.

Harry chuckled. "Jewish?"

Aaron hummed.

"Circumcised?" Harry tried again.

The man hummed again, making Harry doubt whether he'd actually heard him.

"Are you falling asleep?" Harry continued.

There was no response this time but the increase of weight upon Harry's back, so Harry spun around swiftly, catching his taller companion as he fell into his chest, their legs entangling slightly. If Aaron was not yet sleeping, he would be soon, if the way he was breathing slowly and evenly was any indication.

Harry sighed.

"Let's get you into bed," he murmured, and then proceeded to drag the man to the double bed, hauling him onto it.

He took off Aaron's shoes, throwing them on the floor by the bed, and then toed off his own shoes and crawled up the bed, stopping when he was directly above the taller man, straddling him. With another sigh, Harry took off the man's belt, his movements slowed due to the alcohol and exhaustion. Aaron seemed content just to lay there and sink into unconsciousness, much to Harry's disappointment.

Harry stripped down to his boxers and then lay back next to Aaron, staring at the ceiling. He should have known this would happen. The man was practically out of it when he agreed to come back to the hotel with Harry. Harry sighed again.

He felt a jolt of surprise when the man curled around him, one hand circling Harry's waist while the other wormed under Harry's pillow, a clothed leg sliding between Harry's own and resting there. Harry smiled amusedly. A cuddler, who would have thought?

He could fall asleep like that, he guessed. It was comfortable enough, and the warm, rhythmic breathing fluttering his hair was kind of soothing, in a way.

If anything, the relaxed feeling this man had created within Harry, this sort of peacefulness, made up for the lack of sex. Maybe he wouldn't even have to Obliviate the guy.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you all for the supportive feedback! I definitely write more if that's the sort of welcome I get :)_

 _I just realized this story is going to be way into the MA spectrum, and therefore I won't be able to post all of it here, since the maximum rating on FFN is M rated and I will not censure my work... at least not if I can help it. So, some chapters will be missing parts, parts that can be found on AO3 (Archive Of Our Own . org) once the chapter's posted here. I have the same username there (Yuval25) and I will be posting regularly on both sites, you just won't find the sexy scenes in this version of it. I'll be sure to let you know when to hop over to AO3 to read the missing scenes._

 _I hope you enjoy this chapter :) I wrote it from Aaron's point of view this time. The story will be written in alternate POVs, Harry's and Aaron's. I actually started writing it in only Aaron's POV after writing the first chapter in Harry's, but then I thought, hey, Harry's life is pretty interesting, too. So I should just write both and let you enjoy._

 _Don't forget to leave a comment!_

 **Knock On The Door - Chapter 2**

Aaron woke up disoriented and with a pounding in his head that spoke of a recent consumption of a copious amount of alcohol. After a few seconds of head saying _yes_ and body screaming _no_ to the concept of opening his eyes, Aaron rejected the idea and focused on what he could feel instead.

He was lying on his stomach half-on-top of something warm and soft, arms spread wide and socked feet brushing against whatever he was almost completely sprawled over. His head was turned to the right so he could breathe and he felt something like a feather tickling his face. Then the thing he was lying on breathed.

Aaron jolted, causing the person beneath him to stir. He held his breath, hoping the person would fall back asleep, but after a moment felt a warm hand spread over the back of his thigh and slowly move up. It's been a while since Aaron had anything that even remotely resembled intimacy in his life and, sleep-muddled as he was, pressed against warmth and softness and surrounded by the relaxing scent of lavender – which was weird, but sort of comforting all the same – he felt his body lean into the touch.

Something moved near his head and then there were lips, soft and warm as the body beneath him, moving against his. He let out a quiet gasp, allowing the person to sneak their tongue past his lips and it was easy, so easy to just lay there and feel the tender sweetness spread in his head and chest. He sighed softly, and the person under him hummed deeply, soothingly.

 _Wait_.

Against his body's protests, he heaved himself up on his elbows and forced his eyelids up a millimeter, peering at the person beneath him.

If he had any doubts about it being a man, before, they vanished the moment the blurriness faded and the sight of a strong jaw dusted by short stubble, thick black eyebrows and angled nose, soft-looking lips right beneath it came into focus. The man's eyes were closed, so his long, black eyelashes rested on his cheeks delicately. For all his masculine features, Aaron found himself drawn to the face of the stranger. His eyes widened a fraction more when he felt the hand on his thigh brush the swell of his ass.

Body now considerably more alert than when he had woken up, Aaron rolled to his back swiftly and sat up quickly, ignoring his aching head and the sudden dizziness the motion caused.

The dull pain in the small of his back assured him his Bureau-issued gun was still tucked in the waistband of his pants. It was comforting, brought him back a bit of control over the situation, took off some of the tension his shoulders have acquired after he realized he's apparently been sharing a bed with an unknown individual for the last however many unconscious hours. At least it was an individual, Aaron thought, self-berating.

He looked over his shoulder to see the man, bare-chested and impressively muscled, sit up as well, smiling at Aaron drowsily, eyelids moving up and down in a blink with exaggerated slowness, reminding Aaron of slow, lazy moments with Haley, lying in bed on a Saturday morning during holiday season in the abandoned students' dorms in collage.

"Hey," the man said, a slight accent coloring the word. Not American, that's for sure, but unless he spoke more Aaron would have a hard time placing it.

Aaron took in the blissed-out expression on the man's face, his state of undress and remembered the position he had found himself in this morning, and an alarming thought suddenly occurred to him. "Did we…?" he hesitated, afraid to ask. Although it seemed unlikely that Aaron had become naked at any point during last night, the other man clearly had, at least partially, and wasn't that thought just making him feel hot… He hoped he wasn't blushing. But it was rather worrying. Was he actually so drunk last night that he wouldn't remember something like that? That he would actually… With a _man_?

"Aaron… you rocked my world," a soft British accent mumbled through a smile as he looked up at Aaron.

Aaron's eyes widened.

The man burst out laughing.

"God, your face," the man laughed, a quiet, care-free laugh, and slapped a hand against a bare, muscular thigh. Aaron frowned, though relief flowed through his body as the man continued, "Nothing happened. Relax."

Aaron nodded awkwardly. There was a reason he didn't go for one-night stands. Trust-issues aside, he had only ever been with Haley. She had been his first and his last, and everything in between. Sex meant something different for him from stress-relief. It meant something more, something deeper. Giving a complete stranger that part of himself that used to belong to Haley seemed… cheap. Aaron couldn't help but feel like he would betray her.

He looked around for his shoes. A hand on his shoulder made him look back at the man.

"Here you go," the man said, holding Aaron's pair of slick black shoes.

Aaron thanked him and took them, ignoring the pulse of electricity that tingled up his arm at the contact.

"Tea?" the man asked, lifting himself up from the bed and hobbling over to the tray that held tea bags and coffee and two porcelain cups placed upside down on small porcelain plates, next to an electrical kettle. He pressed the button on the handle of the kettle to boil the water already in it and turned the cups so they faced upwards.

"I should go." Aaron pursed his lips. He didn't want to go.

Where did that thought come from?

"I'm offering free tea. Or coffee. Whatever makes your mornings bright and shiny," the man insisted.

"I don't know your name," Aaron had a distinct feeling of de-ja-vu as he said the words.

The man smiled. "Harry."

Aaron stood up.

"Well, Harry," he told Harry, feeling a small shiver at the base of his spine, "I better go."

"You could stay."

Aaron looked into Harry's hopeful eyes, and felt something in his chest. Something warm and strong, like a hand wrapped around his heart. It must have shown on his face because Harry's eyes widened and the overwhelming feeling immediately disappeared, along with Harry's eyes as the Brit hid them beneath black bangs of hair, head bending down.

"Have you got any black coffee there?" Aaron heard himself say.

Harry's eyes lifted, deep green glistening in the poor hotel light. "Think so, yeah."

Aaron waited nervously, fiddling with his hands like a teenager being called on by a teacher, as Harry prepared then carried over the two steaming cups.

"Thanks," Aaron mumbled into his coffee.

"I take it this isn't something that happens often for you," Harry said, taking a sip of his own milky tea.

The corners of Aaron's lips twitched upwards. "No, definitely not. You?"

"Depends on who you ask."

Aaron frowned.

"I work a lot, anyways. Don't get the chance to go to bars very often," Harry confessed, sitting down on the bed and folding his legs up in front of him on the mattress.

Aaron joined him, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I can relate. My job is pretty demanding as well." That was putting it mildly. Erratic schedule and days away from home is the tip of the iceberg when it came to Aaron's job.

Harry shook his head, but didn't say anything. Aaron felt curiosity itch at the tips of his fingers, but Harry didn't seem to want to expand on the subject, so Aaron left it at that.

They drank in silence for a few minutes, awkward glances sneaked at each other crossing from time to time and resulting in both parties blushing and looking away at the same time.

Aaron's head was spinning slightly from how bizarre the situation was. He couldn't wrap his head around it, it was too strange. And too comfortable. Way too comfortable.

"So what do you do for fun around here?" Harry asked suddenly.

Aaron looked at Harry again. "Well, there's always the bars."

Harry snorted.

"To be honest, I don't get out much. I can recommend several playgrounds and the dinosaur exhibit at the museum, though."

Harry's eyes widened comically with a sort of shocked amusement. "Smooth. How old?"

"Four. Though sometimes he speaks with wisdom beyond what most adults possess." Aaron couldn't help the proud smile as he thought of his son, all of four years old, saying that maybe if he wore his cowboy hat and boots long enough, one day he'd wake up and be that person.

"What's his name?"

"Jack," Aaron found himself answering, to his utter bewilderment. He couldn't explain why he was telling this stranger about Jack. He was usually rather paranoid, and rightly so, about sharing information about his son.

"Cute. Bet he frowns like you."

Aaron frowned. Harry laughed.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but your frown is adorable," Harry whispered, leaning in close.

Aaron felt the heat rise to his cheeks and turned his head away, clearing his throat and leaning back slightly to keep a measure of distance between him and Harry.

Harry had a look of resignation on his face as he backed away.

"You're not wearing a ring," Harry muttered.

Aaron pursed his lips before replying. "I'm not married."

"Just freaked out then," Harry summarized.

"Look," Aaron said, putting his empty cup of coffee on the bedside table on his side of the bed and then turning back to look at Harry.

His eyes were so green.

"I have nothing against homosexual people. It's just that I'm not…"

"Gay? Could have fooled me. Or at least bisexual," Harry seemed very convinced, which made Aaron childishly want to prove him wrong.

"It is what it is," Aaron insisted.

"Hey, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…"

"It isn't a du- This is ridiculous," Aaron got up and looked around for his belt, which he found draped over a chair in the corner of the room.

"I wasn't trying to upset you," Harry said. "I'm just reacting to what I saw. You didn't mind me being a man last night. Or this morning."

Aaron slipped the belt through the loops of his pants and buckled it. Then he paused to gather his bearing – because this was strange and new and he didn't really want to leave and that was even stranger – before he turned to the door.

"Wait- Hang on a second,"

A hand grabbed his arm right as he was about to turn the doorknob, and he fought the instinct to tackle the grabber to the ground.

He let his eyes lock with impossible green. In hindsight, that was probably his first mistake. Because as he looked into Harry's eyes, thinking 'beautiful' and feeling slightly dazed, he failed to notice he was leaning down. And down. And down.

He noticed about half-way through closing his eyes that their lips were touching, and that there was a hand in his hair and another gripping his shoulder, and that his own hands, they were- they were-

Aaron moaned and tore himself back from the kiss, taking a step back for good measure before remembering there was a door behind him and he couldn't actually step back.

"Grabbing my arse isn't gay, sure," Harry laughed breathlessly, eyes sparkling, so close to Aaron his breath fell warm across Aaron's face.

"I should go," But instead he found himself pulling Harry close again, lips locked together and door pushing against his back. Or was it his back pushed against the door? There was too much going on, he couldn't tell.

He gasped when Harry's mouth left his, struggling to suck in one breath after another.

"Still not gay?"

"I really should go."

"Are you sure?"

"Fairly sure."

"As you wish."

Then Aaron was pulled forward, the door was opened behind him and he was pushed out to the carpeted hall of the hotel.

"Wait-"

"Bye, Aaron."

The door clicked shut.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hi everyone! This chapter took forever to write, mainly because Aaron and Harry kept trying to jump each other and I had to maintain the foot of distance between them. I was mostly successful._

 _This chapter is actually called Chapter 2.5 on my laptop, because I already wrote chapter 3 and snippets of chapters 4 through 32, and I just couldn't be bothered to change chapter names on all the text files since I'd already predicted I will be adding chapters in-between, so that's why we have chapter 2.5, chapter 2.6, chapter 4.5 and chapter 27.5. Aren't I organized?_

 _I hope you enjoy this chapter. It has more Aaron/Harry banter than I'd intended..._

 _Tell me what you think :)_

 **Knock On The Door - Chapter 3**

He couldn't get him out of his head. The gemstone green eyes, the pale lips, easy smile and infectious laugh. The dark hair standing at all angles, contrasting sharply with the pale pillow.

Had the man really shut a door in Aaron face?

Yes. Yes, he had.

And then it was like he disappeared completely.

"Hotch?" Prentiss's voice woke him from his musings. "You glare at that table any harder it's gonna catch on fire."

Aaron stopped glaring at the table and looked up at Prentiss, surprised.

"Is everything okay?" She asked him, a tone of concern in her voice.

They were on the jet on the way to Oklahoma, where three women have been found dead last week. Cause of death appeared to be drowning, yet water had not been located anywhere near the dumpsite and the bodies had no sign of being submerged in it.

"Yes, fine. Just thinking," he told her.

She nodded, looking unconvinced.

Aaron closed his eyes and tried to catch some sleep. Jack had had a nightmare last night and Aaron had stayed awake until the break of dawn trying to calm him down and convince him that vampires didn't exist, internally cursing the idiotic boy from Jack's class who had talked him into believing in them in the first place. He had eventually dropped his equally exhausted son off at school and drove to the Bureau with eyes that threatened to fall shut, sipping lukewarm coffee out of an old thermos he has had since Jack was born. When he'd finally arrived at his workplace, hoping for a slow day of in-state cases despite knowing the odds of that happening, JJ had whisked the team away to the jet after a fifteen-minute briefing and preparation, and Aaron had had to make do with a go bag that consisted mostly of unwashed cloths that didn't smell bad per se, but clearly weren't fresh either.

While he was usually self-sufficient and had acclimated to living alone and throwing together his own travel duffel, an ill-timed social gathering to celebrate a case with no casualties and last night's – or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it this morning's – episode of vampire-induced drama had caused the concept of packing up for the inevitable to have completely fled Aaron's mind, leaving him with the previous case's unfolded outfits wrinkling away in the duffle.

 _I'll wash them at the hotel_ , Aaron planned – though his line of work had taught him time and time again that things rarely played out the way they were supposed to – _There has to be some sort of laundry arrangement there_. That is, assuming they actually got to rent a room in a hotel rather than camp out at the police station and sleep in threadbare office swivel chairs with broken armrests, or worse, stay up all night chasing suspects, or _worst_ , staking out an abandoned building waiting for something to happen.

As if this day didn't turn out to be rotten enough, Aaron found himself a few hours later crouched behind a low, prickly bush next to Morgan, clad in a bulletproof vest and waiting for the old lady in the flower garden twenty feet away to receive a visit from her suspicious, released-early-due-to-good-behavior son.

It did mean he had plenty of time to think about Harry, though.

* * *

Back home and sprawled out on the sofa after Jack had finally succumbed to sleep with a pout and a longer-than-usual bedtime story – featuring a lost knight who went by the name of Jack the Great running into a pack of friendly dragons, whose kind nature and impeccable English meant they served him apple pie and ice cream and helped him find his way back to his beautiful princess – Aaron still couldn't stop thinking about the green-eyed man.

He sighed and turned off the TV, getting up with a grunt as his knees protested with an alarming creak. Might as well.

He flipped open his mobile phone and pressed the digits he had memorized the moment he had read them on the crumpled piece of hotel-issued legal pad paper he had found in his pocket after leaving Harry's hotel room. He pressed call, and had to wait precisely three seconds before the man that has been occupying his thoughts for the last two weeks picked up.

"Wasn't sure you'd call," Harry said by way of greeting, voice as rough and accented as Aaron remembered.

Humming in response, Aaron padded quietly to the kitchen and reached for the cabinets next to the refrigerator to get a glass. He fetched a bottle of whiskey, pouring himself the drink one-handedly before placing the bottle on the counter and taking a sip, leaning one hip casually back against the counter as he tried to come up with an answer. To be honest, he hadn't planned anything beyond getting Harry to pick up the phone.

"So, what are you wearing?"

Aaron spluttered on his drink.

Harry laughed.

"Still not gay?"

"No," Aaron rasped out, holding the kitchen towel to his whiskey-sodden shirt.

"Damn."

"How are you?" Aaron asked, trying for casual but failing miserably.

"We're going to be civil about this?"

"Define civil."

"Fine. I'm good. How are you?"

Aaron looked at one of Jack's paintings stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet of a dog saying 'Every day is a new experience!' For anyone else, it would have been unclear what the blend of blue, red and yellow smudges was supposed to be, but Aaron has been deciphering Jack's paintings since the child leaned how to paint and he could recognize what was obviously a self-portrait, accompanied by something that had to be a dog, and what might have been Aaron's smiling face in the corner. The blue smudge outlined with yellow was unmistakably Hailey's head, and Aaron felt his heart contract painfully in his chest at the reminder. His wife's – he will always think of her as his wife – death was still too fresh a wound to poke at, so Aaron averted his eyes and looked at the floor, instead. Much less heartbreak to be found there.

"Aaron?"

"Where are you?" Aaron asked, surprising himself. Ever since he had left Harry's hotel room, there was a tension in his shoulders, restlessness in his mind that had him drumming his fingers on every available surface and surpassing even Reid on nervous ticks, stumbling over his words as he gave a profile and losing focus at all hours of the day. His mind kept going back to the way Harry's presence had felt beside him, that strange, absolute feeling enfolding him and filling him at the same time, so addictive that Aaron has been craving it nearly constantly.

"Spain," Harry said easily, smoothly.

Aaron was glad he had not sipped from his drink again because his shirt could not handle a second round of sprayed whiskey.

"Spain?" He asked, just to be sure he heard right.

"Job came up," Harry dismissed.

"Makes sense."

"It really does."

Aaron pursed his lips.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask," Harry replied, making it quite clear that he didn't guarantee an answer.

"What is this?"

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Us. Are we… friends?"

"Sure, we're friends." There it was again, that dismissive tone.

"We barely know each other."

"We know plenty."

Aaron rolled his eyes, staying stubbornly quiet. Five seconds passed. Ten seconds.

"Really?" Harry relented, sounding exasperated. "Fine. My favorite color's red. If I were an animal, I'd be an ant. I'm currently eating something baked, and it's got cheese in it so that's good."

"Harry," Aaron sighed, the sound, to his horror, bearing resemblance to Jack's whining.

"I can hear you frowning."

Aaron's frown deepened.

"Hey, how about this; when I get back I'll buy you a drink and we can get to know each other – as friends, don't get your panties in a twist, Aaron – sounds good?"

"We'll see."

"Stop frowning. I've got to go. See you soon," Harry hung up quickly, not even giving Aaron a chance to catch up or say goodbye, which seemed to be a recurring pattern with the other man. Not that it mattered.

Aaron went back to the couch and fell back on it, careful not to spill his refill of whiskey.

Aaron was a good profiler. A great profiler. But even a blank A4 was more readable than the green-eyed mystery that was Harry.

* * *

'Soon' turned out to be three weeks later. Aaron was half-expecting Harry not to show up at all at that point. Only Harry called, on a Tuesday Aaron happened to have off because they'd finished the last case at such a late hour that it might as well have been considered early, while Jack was at school. They set a time and place and Aaron threw on casual jeans and a dark blue t-shirt beneath a brown jacket and grabbed his wallet and badge, holstered his gun, and made his way outside while ignoring his erratic heartbeats and the way his stomach fluttered in nervous anticipation.

He almost didn't recognize him.

"Over here," whisper-called to him a man in a dark hoodie from the shadowed entrance of an alleyway just beside the café they had agreed to meet at.

Frowning, Aaron cautiously stepped closer to the stranger, one hand inching behind him for his gun.

"Oh, for God's sake. It's me, Aaron," the hooded figure whispered.

Aaron's eyes narrowed in suspicion before widening at seeing Harry in the features of the man's face. He didn't look like Harry, but at the same time, he did. It was very confusing, but before Aaron could develop a headache over the matter, a hand reached out from the alley and grabbed his, pulling him inside. He only just barely resisted drawing his gun.

In the shadows, deep enough inside the alley not to be seen by passersby, Harry grinned up at him.

"You've grown."

Aaron glared at him. "Shut up."

Harry laughed quietly. "We should probably get out of here."

"Yes, why _are_ we here?"

"Don't tell me you don't find this mold-infested alley charming."

"You've got something in your hair," Aaron said instead of replying, reaching to tuck his hand under Harry's hoodie and touch the soft red- "You dyed your hair _red_?"

"Thought it'd fit me better," Harry grinned.

"If you think so."

Harry swatted Aaron's hand away, fixing the hoodie back into position to hide most of his hair and half of his face.

"What is this?" Aaron asked.

"We're friends."

"No, not that," Aaron sighed, rubbing his forehead in frustration. Harry was exhausting. But he made him feel alive, for some reason, and the tiredness that had been plaguing him from the second he had rolled out of bed to the sound of the alarm clock reminding him to go make Jack breakfast had disappeared the moment he had gotten Harry's call and heard the man's voice.

"This is me buying you a drink."

Only now Aaron noticed the plastic bag Harry was holding in his hand.

"Let's get drunk at an inappropriate hour," Harry suggested.

"Well, when you put it like that," Aaron quipped sarcastically.

Harry rolled his eyes, half-hidden beneath his hood. "I know a place. Come on."

Feeling reckless and unable to stop it, Aaron followed Harry further into the alleyway that turned out not to be a dead-end as he'd originally thought. They maneuvered through the staircase of a building and then around the entrance and a busy street and a side street and an actual dead-end to the back door of a hotel.

"This way," Harry instructed, leading the way into the hotel.

They took the thankfully empty elevator and in no time they reached the third floor, walked through a nicely carpeted lime-green themed hotel hallway and to a door labeled 311.

"Here we go," Harry murmured as he opened the door, throwing back the hood that covered his head.

Aaron didn't look around. Every hotel was basically the same. He knew that from the many cases he worked all over the United States. He was much more interested in the astonishing redness of Harry's hair. He had to forcibly tear his eyes away from the confounding sight.

Aaron closed the door behind him as Harry took four bottles of beer of a brand he didn't recognize out of the bag and rolled the plastic bag into a neat little ball, throwing it into an open suitcase.

"It's good for packing stuff," he said as an answer to Aaron's perplexed look.

He opened the bottles handed Aaron one of them. Aaron sat down at the edge of the bed and waited for Harry to do the same.

"Gay yet?"

"It doesn't work like that," Aaron frowned into his drink.

"It can," Harry insisted.

"It really can't."

"It can if you're already gay."

Aaron had nothing to say to that. Harry was stubborn as a mule and arguing with him over this was pointless.

"So how have you been?" Harry asked, taking a sip. Aaron was transfixed by how his throat muscles worked as he swallowed the drink.

"Small talk, Harry?"

"Do you prefer awkward silence?"

"How was Spain?" he surrendered.

"Sunny," Harry smirked. "See how I worked the weather in there as well?"

Aaron bit back an amused smile.

"I thought we were getting coffee," Aaron said, a question in his tone. He tried the beer. It wasn't half bad.

"But this is so much more fun, wouldn't you say?"

"Are you hiding from something?" Aaron finally asked the question that has been hovering on his tongue for the last twenty minutes.

"And the cop comes through!" Harry teased.

Aaron didn't need to ask how Harry knew he worked in law enforcement – someone with a sharp enough eye would have had no trouble spotting his gun. The one in his waistband, anyway.

"FBI, actually," Aaron corrected. "And you didn't answer my question. Who are you hiding from?"

"My fans. I'm extremely famous."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. You're less likely to meet any of my worshippers here, though. But you never know."

Aaron was good at spotting a lie. Harry didn't seem to be lying, but he wasn't telling the whole truth either. A good lie is one based heavily on the truth, with slight tweaks and alterations that aren't big enough to stand out. Already, Harry was proving himself to be quite competent at half-truths and omissions.

"So, FBI, huh? How's that working out for you?" Harry changed the subject. Aaron let him, since there wasn't much one could do when faced with sheer bull-headedness.

"I like what I do. Saving people, making the world a safer place. That's what matters, at the end of the day," Aaron answered honestly. It was what had drawn him away from his former job as a lawyer and pushed him to become an agent in the first place – the ability to stop offenders rather than deal with the aftermath, spiraling down that slippery slope of 'if I had just-' that had, among other things, caused the rift between him and Sean. Aaron had been bitter and angry, had snapped and overworked himself to the point of obsession, and only Hailey had been able to break through the shell of a person Aaron had become and wrench him out of it. It was somewhat ironic, how she had been the one to tear him away from his old, self-destructive job, when fifteen years later found them arguing the opposite sides of the same argument.

Harry was looking at him in surprise, his eyes sparkling with wonder, like Aaron had just done something amazing.

"It's… been a while since I thought of it like that," Harry confessed, looking down at the bottle which he held with slack fingers in his lap.

Aaron pondered that for a moment. It sounded like Harry knew what Aaron had been talking about. Was he talking about his own experience, or his general opinion of law enforcement? Aaron knew the population could either praise law enforcement or outright despise it.

"Want another?" Harry asked, eyeing the empty bottle in Aaron's hands.

Aaron shook his head, putting the bottle on the table to his right. "I can't actually get drunk. I've got to pick my son up in a couple of hours."

Harry hummed, downing what was left of his beer. He handed the bottle to Aaron. "Put it on the table, will you?"

Aaron complied, setting it beside his own.

They spent the next half-hour having the most uninformative – on Harry's part, anyway – get-to-know-each-other conversation Aaron's ever had. He was plenty cooperative, but Harry was closed off like an unsub waiting for a lawyer, expertly diverting the subject of conversation every time it started to revolve around himself and barely volunteering any personal information, if at all. He talked non-stop, babbling on about this and that, likes and dislikes, but never once about his family or his job.

Aaron had started to lose focus somewhere between the topics of the American election system and the merits of having Barak Obama as a president.

"You look like you're about to fall over," Harry said suddenly, half-amused and half-concerned expression on his face.

Aaron couldn't argue with that. He had slept three hours a night this last week working the case, and didn't even get a full hour of sleep between getting home and getting up to drive Jack to school.

"You could catch a wink here, I don't mind. I could wake you up in an hour, if you'd like?"

Aaron considered this. If Harry wanted to kill him, he'd have done it the first time Aaron had been unconscious and vulnerable in his presence. And he would probably be safer driving after a quick nap rather than exhausted, overworked and with beer in his system. "Forty-five minutes," he compromised, remembering he had to walk back to where he had parked his car. He took off his shoes, already half-way asleep.

Harry nodded, getting up from the bed so Aaron could crawl up and under the covers. Aaron lifted them up to his chin and touched his gun to remind himself that it was there. He had no idea why, but he felt safe in Harry's company. It was easy to let his guard down around the green-eyed man, and even easier to close his eyes and drift off to the most comfortable, stress-free sleep he's had in over a week.


End file.
